TOTALLY OFFTOPIC: I am so sick of articles like this that end with "Follow me on Twitter!" Why? Just because you wrote ONE article I found interesting? (And it was a good article)

I even looked at his Twitter and it's about as interesting (to me, I stress) as biting my toenail.

Imagine you're at a party and someone tells a joke. You laugh. He then walks up to you and goes "Hey you laughed at my joke, we should really be friends, please give me your phone number so I can text you when I want to!"

EDIT: I notice the text of the article has now been changed so that the "Follow Me" link is now separate. Before the edit the article said "I can't give it all away at once so be sure to Follow Me on Twitter" as the single finishing sentence.

EDIT2: Turns out the reason for this is explained to me here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2392935

I think you are making a big deal out of nothing.

There is no social pressure to actually follow them on twitter, no one will be offended if you totally ignore the sentence on the page.

Where as in your example it is socially awkward to refuse to give your number to some guy asking it because they want to be your friend.

True, my example in reality doesn't really match with an article.

And yes, I am probably making a big deal out of nothing. My reason for posting this comment was to see if others felt the same way, it appears they don't. My bad. I'll end with this: The people with large follower count's aren't the same ones that have to go asking for them.

No problem. Actually just in case chrysb's answer is too vague, the reason you see this pretty often is that Dustin Curtis ran an experiment a couple of years ago, which was heavily discussed on HN, in which he concluded that adding the sentence "You should follow me on twitter here" made him get the most click through rate.

http://www.dustincurtis.com/you_should_follow_me_on_twitter....

I hadn't seen this. Thanks for the link.

Blame Dustin Curtis :)

> "Hey you laughed at my joke, we should really be friends, please give me your phone number so I can text you when I want to!"

And that is exactly what parties are for. Performing a BFS on a bunch of people to find interesting nodes you want to explore further.

Of course, but you don't foist yourself on them as in my example. If you do it's creepy and annoying. Sure, have a link to your Twitter on your page and I'll probably follow you if I find you interesting.

Shoving it in my face though, well, that's just offputting.

So if you truly believe you have what it takes to disrupt the mobile-photo-sharing space why did you decide to join Google?